


trying to walk

by orangeshoe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Homesickness, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Night Terrors, can be read as typical space dad or more, can you tell i enjoy writing about night terrors lmao, lance has a lot of angst potential pls, not super shippy it's mostly just sad lance, takes place in the middle of s1ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9894986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangeshoe/pseuds/orangeshoe
Summary: “I can’t--Shiro, god, you don’t understand-”“I do, Lance.. Just listen to me. Listen to my voice. Breathe.”





	

“Shiro, p-please, I-”

“It’s okay.. Try to calm down.”

“I can’t--Shiro, god, you don’t understand-”

“I do, Lance.. Just listen to me. Listen to my voice. Breathe.”

The blue paladin tried. Tried to focus on breathing over the incessant pounding of his heart at ten hundred miles an hour. He felt his body shaking, fingers twitching beyond his control and god he just wanted to cry it out. His throat felt all thick and clogged, like he wanted to vomit but kept it in, _push it back, damnit, you’re stronger than this, don’t let him see it_ , his forehead was sweating and his eyes could barely stay focused. He felt the bile rising, could almost taste it, but swallowed back, fighting. Every second, his stomach felt like it was sinking deeper, just a booming sound in the back of his head repeating over and over, and he desperately clung to Shiro’s voice to try to block it out.

“Shiro, t-the crystal..”

“It’s fine, Lance. Everything is fine.” That was when Lance felt like he could finally actually feel the warm touch on his back, the slow and careful rubbing motion up and down his spine. It was meant to be soothing, he knew it was, but right now he felt he couldn’t register that feeling. 

It’s been a few nights already since it happened, but tonight Lance had suddenly woken up in a panic, his nightmare having replayed his near-death incident with Coran and the decoy droid. In his half-asleep, half-stunned state of mind, his body had stumbled to Shiro’s room, banging shakily on the door with tightly clenched fists and just hoping with everything he had that he’d open up. Thankfully Shiro did, and Lance stood there frozen and stuttering until Shiro recognized what was happening and reached out to bring him into the room.

How could coming back after something like that still make him feel so weak? He literally escaped death, they’d all said it, acknowledged it, but everything about the event still bogged him down. Every ounce of fear, intimidation, the strain it took for him to even open his eyes at first.. The way his muscles had all felt like they burned like all hell itself. But right now, all he could recognize was he began to feel safe in Shiro’s arms--protected, cared for, appreciated. Another familiar feeling, somehow he felt the two events were connected.

Shiro takes him to his bed and they sat against the wall now, Shiro’s prosthetic arm tight around Lance’s shaking shoulders, his other hand rubbing up and down Lance’s arm. Lance did everything he could to not just curl up right there in Shiro’s lap and settled for curling against his shoulder, having given up on fighting his sobs and letting them soak Shiro’s T-shirt.

Mom, Dad.. all of his siblings and aunts and uncles. He remembers their faces so vividly, flashing before his eyes in such a quick instant. Happy faces turned worried so quickly, shouts of joy to shrieks of terror.. He remembers being so homesick, wanting to give his little brother a noogie one more time, or even getting smacked on the back of the head for giving some snarky remark at his mom again. He remembers wondering if he’d ever see them again, and then, for a second, realizing he might not. And that sinking feeling got intensified tenfold.

Either he’s been talking through his sobbing or Shiro’s a mind reader, because Lance feels his shoulder being squeezed gently and Shiro’s low voice says clearly, “I know. I miss mine, too,” and it only makes Lance want to cry harder.

“I just-I just want to hug her one more time.. She doesn’t--I can’t even c-call home..”

“I know..” Shiro pulls him in closer.

There’s something about it that makes Lance feel like either Shiro’s been doing this for everyone on the team, or he’s just so used to doing it for himself that he knows how to help Lance, too. Either way, Shiro feels warm and he’s combing his fingers through Lance’s hair and it feels just like when he’d lie in his big sister’s lap and she’d tell him about her day and _oh god there are the big crocodile tears again_.

They spend about half the night going in and out of Lance’s barely coherent babbling and Shiro’s short but adequate consolations before Lance’s body finally decides it’s out of energy to be much of anything anymore and collapses in Shiro’s bed. He feels like he should leave, at least drag himself out and save some of his pride by not having to wake up and remember how he cried himself to sleep in his idol’s bed, but before he can even open his mouth Shiro’s shutting off the light and pulling the blanket over them both. It’s warm, and even warmer when Shiro settles in, and Lance can literally feel his body melting into a mattress for the first time in a while.

This time as he’s drifting off to sleep, he doesn’t get startled by the booming explosion of metal, but rather soothed by the powerful voice of his leader and now friend Shiro telling him everything’s okay. And now in the mostly quiet bedroom there in the castle, as he hears Shiro’s and his own breathing evening out into the air in this small space they share, he might even start to believe it.


End file.
